[OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? -> How to make a nightmare come true!

[Dave Stubbs]

2009/3/5 Russ Nelson <russ at cloudmade.com>:
>
> On Mar 5, 2009, at 2:54 PM, Matt Amos wrote:
>
>  us trying to read a complex license
> without comments is like lawyers trying to read complex code without
> comments.
>
> They're mostly hard to read because they're tedious in their detail.  Legal
> writing isn't actually THAT impenetrable, if you can stay awake (no,
> seriously, I can only read 2-3 licenses at a time before I start to nod off.
>  Takes me DAYS to read all the OSI-approved licenses).
>

The whole code/comments analogy seems the wrong one. Most people are
after the user manual -- I don't want a step by step description of
how the license works, I want a nice manual telling me how to use it.
And like most open source projects there currently isn't one (at least
not an up-to-date one). And for pretty much the same reasons (lack of
people who are not one of: busy coding, rubbish at writing manuals,
don't understand the program).

Dave